Adzera language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adzera
Spoken in:	Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea
Total speakers:	30,000
Language family:	Austronesian  Malayo-Polynesian   Central-Eastern    Eastern     Oceanic      Western       North New Guinea        Huon Gulf         Markham          Upper           Adzera
Writing system:	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	map
ISO 639-3:	azr
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Adzera (also spelled Atzera, Azera, Atsera, Acira) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 30,000 people in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

Contents 1 Phonology 1.1 Vowels 1.2 Consonants 2 Writing system 3 References

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Back
High	/i/	/u/
Low	/ɑ/

The diphthongs /ɑi ɑu/ occur, while other sequences of vowels are split over two syllables.

[edit] Consonants

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Plain	p		t			k	ʔ
	Voiced	b		d			ɡ
	Prenasalized	ᵐp		ⁿt			ᵑk	ⁿʔ
Affricate	Plain			tʃ
	Voiced			dʒ
	Prenasalized			ⁿtʃ
Nasal		m		n			ŋ
Rhotic				r
Fricative			f	s				h
Approximant		w				j

/h/ occurs in only one word: the interjection hai "yes".

The prenasalized consonants tend to lose prenasalization initially and after consonants.

/tʃ ⁿtʃ/ are sometimes realized as [ts ⁿts], especially in codas.

[edit] Writing system

A a	B b	D d	Dz dz	F f	G g	H h	I i	K k	M m	Mp mp	N n	Nt nt
/ɑ/	/b/	/d/	/dʒ/	/f/	/ɡ/	/h/	/i/	/k/	/m/	/ᵐp/	/n/	/ⁿt/
Nts nts	Ŋ ŋ	Ŋk ŋk	Ŋʼ ŋʼ	P p	R r	S s	T t	Ts ts	U u	W w	Y y	ʼ
/ⁿtʃ/	/ŋ/	/ᵑk/	/ⁿʔ/	/p/	/r/	/s/	/t/	/tʃ/	/u/	/w/	/j/	/ʔ/

J, o and z are used in some loanwords and names.

[edit] References

• Cates, Ann R. (1974). "The Atzera literacy programme: An experimental campaign in Papua New Guinea". Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 10: 34–38. 
• Holzknecht, K. G. (1973). "The phonemes of the Adzera language". Pacific Linguistics A 38: 1–11. 
• Holzknecht, K. G. (1973). "Morphophonemics of the Adzera language". Pacific Linguistics A 38: 13–19. 
• Holzknecht, K. G. (1973). "A synopsis of the verb forms in Adzera". Pacific Linguistics A 38: 21–28. 
• Holzknecht, K. G. (1978). Adzera-English dictionary. 
• Holzknecht, S. (1986). "A morphology and grammar of Adzera (Amari dialect), Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea". Pacific Linguistics A 70: 77–166. 
• Howard, David Edward (2002). Continuity and given-new status of discourse referents in Adzera oral narrative., M.A. thesis. University of Texas at Arlington. 
• Roke, Ann; Price, Dorothy (1970). A summary of the Atzera literacy programme. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.